I gotta be honest. I abhor the term “Midwest”. It seems to have become a blanket term that can be applied to any place between New York and LA. I prefer to refer to the area that I am from as The Plains, The Prairie or even The Heartland. Over the last few days I’ve come to realize that the Heartland’s northern bounds stretch all the way into Saskatchewan.

When it is time for a human to learn to walk, it is a gradual process. They are allowed to slowly progress through the stages of locomotion until walking is achieved. Baby birds are given no such accommodation when it is time for them to learn to fly. They are thrust from the nest and must relay on instant instinct to avoid a crash……….I’m kind of feeling like a baby bird right now.

Next question up is ‘How.’ How am I going to do this trip? How can I afford it? How do I have the time to do it? How do you write such stunning intros on your blog? 🙂 I’ll try to answer each of these questions, except for maybe the last one, in this post.

So why do this trip? I have already received this question many times, from none moreso than myself. Why risk the danger? Why spend the money? Why be away from the people you care about? The answer to this question is very much a work in progress, but I will give my best attempt in this post. It will be painfully introspective (hopefully more for me than for you 🙂 ), but for that reason it should serve as an effective way to introduce myself.